IDG Contributor Network: Cloud war collateral: What the rise of AWS, Azure has meant for data centers

When Henry Ford introduced the Model T in the fall of 1908, he likely didn’t comprehend the full scope of events he would set in motion. Come 1914, and Ford’s production line had reduced assembly times from 12 hours to less than two and a half hours, slashed the going price of an automobile, and redefined the working wage of factory employees, ultimately putting more than 15 million Model T’s on the road and igniting the entire automotive industry in the years to come. Competition often leads to innovation and progress for other industry players. One modern equivalent of this can be seen in the rise of public and private cloud providers like Amazon and Microsoft.  AWS’ sales numbers recently topped $12 billion, up nearly 55 percent from the same period last year. Meanwhile, Microsoft continues to push ahead and is projected to reach $20 billion in annual cloud revenue by June 2018. As these powerhouses and others like Oracle and Google continue to see widespread adoption across industries, other players have stepped in to consume their piece of the $204 billion-dollar cloud infrastructure pie, leading to an ecosystem of cloud and data center partners that continue to push Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: Cloud war collateral: What the rise of AWS, Azure has meant for data centers

When Henry Ford introduced the Model T in the fall of 1908, he likely didn’t comprehend the full scope of events he would set in motion. Come 1914, and Ford’s production line had reduced assembly times from 12 hours to less than two and a half hours, slashed the going price of an automobile, and redefined the working wage of factory employees, ultimately putting more than 15 million Model T’s on the road and igniting the entire automotive industry in the years to come. Competition often leads to innovation and progress for other industry players. One modern equivalent of this can be seen in the rise of public and private cloud providers like Amazon and Microsoft.  AWS’ sales numbers recently topped $12 billion, up nearly 55 percent from the same period last year. Meanwhile, Microsoft continues to push ahead and is projected to reach $20 billion in annual cloud revenue by June 2018. As these powerhouses and others like Oracle and Google continue to see widespread adoption across industries, other players have stepped in to consume their piece of the $204 billion-dollar cloud infrastructure pie, leading to an ecosystem of cloud and data center partners that continue to push Continue reading

Worth Reading: Creating an IXP in Denver

The word Internet is short for internetwork. It’s just a network of networks. So the more places you can connect those networks, the more robust the whole system is. That’s what Internet Exchange Points (“IXPs”) are. They’re the connection points where networks can connect to each other, and they’re a crucial part of the infrastructure of the Internet. In Europe, IXPs have traditionally been independent and are often run as nonprofits, whereas in North America, they’ve typically been owned and operated by commercial colocation facility operators or Internet Service Providers (ISPs). In the last several years, though, there’s been a movement in the US to build more independent, community-focused IXPs. IX-Denver is part of that movement. —The Internet Society

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Google Cloud exec talks courting enterprises, competing with Amazon and Microsoft

Tariq Shaukat doesn’t have the typical background you’d expect from someone leading the sales and professional services division at Google’s Cloud. Before becoming president of customers, Shaukat was chief commercial officer for Caesar’s Entertainment, the vast hotel and casino chain. As Google is attempting to court enterprise clients, Shaukat is bringing a customer-centric view to the business. And by the way, he’s no tech novice: He’s got undergraduate and graduate degrees from MIT and another graduate degree from Stanford.Analysts who track the IaaS cloud computing market give Google high marks for innovation and infrastructure backbone. But in last year’s Magic Quadrant, Gartner noted that Google was in the “rudimentary stages” of interacting with enterprise clients. The hiring of VMware co-founder Diane Greene in early 2016 was seen as a turning point for Google being serious about pursuing the enterprise market. Shaukat is continuing that work. In a market dominated by Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, how will Google reach out to enterprise clients? That’s Shaukat’s job.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Leaked docs suggest NSA and CIA behind Equation cyberespionage group

Purported CIA documents leaked Tuesday appear to confirm that the U.S. National Security Agency and one of CIA's own divisions were responsible for the malware tools and operations attributed to a group that security researchers have dubbed the Equation.The Equation's cyberespionage activities were documented in February 2015 by researchers from antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab. It is widely considered to be the most advanced cyberespionage group in the world based on the sophistication of its tools and the length of its operations, some possibly dating as far back as 1996.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Leaked docs suggest NSA and CIA behind Equation cyberespionage group

Purported CIA documents leaked Tuesday appear to confirm that the U.S. National Security Agency and one of CIA's own divisions were responsible for the malware tools and operations attributed to a group that security researchers have dubbed the Equation. The Equation's cyberespionage activities were documented in February 2015 by researchers from antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab. It is widely considered to be the most advanced cyberespionage group in the world based on the sophistication of its tools and the length of its operations, some possibly dating as far back as 1996.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Blows Against the Empire: Microsoft to Use Qualcomm-Based Servers in Data Centers

Qualcomm and Microsoft seem to be aligning their orbits with each other.

Google touts its enterprise chops in cloud keynote

Enterprises: Google wants you. That's the message coming out of the first keynote address at the company’s Google Cloud Next conference in San Francisco on Wednesday. The tech titan's cloud team really wants enterprises to know that it's serious about serving their needs.Diane Greene, the senior vice president of Google Cloud, showcased a suite of partnerships and customer announcements that provided concrete results for the enterprise-focused strategy that Greene kicked off when she joined Google in 2015.Google hasn't always focused on the enterprise. The announcements showcased on Wednesday show that the company's initiatives to make its G Suite productivity service and public cloud platform offerings have been resonating with customers it may not have reached in the past.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to manage introverts and extroverts

The tech world can be a haven for people who enjoy solitary, focused work, and it often attracts people who gravitate toward the quiet end of the introvert-extrovert spectrum. For managers, the challenge is how to make the most of introverts’ and extroverts’ strengths. Team diversity can be a tremendous asset if companies are prepared to accommodate divergent work preferences.Another approach is to create speaking roles in meetings, says Shobhna Upadhyaya, senior manager, business operations, at LinkedIn. “Given that introverts may not speak up in meetings on their own, carve out a role for them to participate in meetings, [for example] have them present a certain section if they are up for it.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

LogRhythm’s Platform Thwarts Threats by Analyzing Log Data

The company’s customers include Macy’s, NASA, the U.S. Air Force, and Amtrak.

ZTE Fined a Record $1.2B For Breaking U.S. Sanctions

The company shipped U.S-made equipment to Iran and North Korea.

Avaya Customers Shouldn’t Panic

Leaky Abstraction: An Example

The paper in question is from 2008, and the remedies have already been implemented in every BGP implementation I know of (in fact, getting rid of the scanner is something that just went into FR Routing). The paper can be found here, and a presentation based on the paper can be found here. They use a different example than mine in the paper—it’s a bit more subtle.

In this case, the abstraction is treating an AS as a single “thing” to provide stability in the larger routing system. But any time you have an abstraction, including summarization and aggregation, there is always some possibility the abstraction will leak. Here the leak is an internal route metric change “leaking” into an actual change in the path through the network, although both paths still exist. There are more subtle changes, such as a route metric change causing an update to be sent even though the path itself hasn’t even changed, but I chose this example to make it easier to understand.

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Like in PCs, Microsoft and ARM look to topple Intel in servers

Intel's TV marketing campaign says the company is driving 98 percent of the cloud. That statistic will come under attack with some chip and OS announcements on Wednesday.The most significant announcement: Microsoft's Windows Server OS now running on ARM chips. The OS was exclusive to x86 chips, but now customers can consider ARM chips to run Windows Server.Microsoft did not announce an official date for an ARM version of Windows Server, though the software company is using such systems internally. The announcement was made on the opening day of Open Compute Project's U.S. Summit in Santa Clara, California.At the summit, Qualcomm showed a new 48-core 1U server running its Centriq 2400 ARM chip. The server is based on Microsoft's Project Olympus server design and was shown running Windows Server. It was designed for the Azure cloud at Microsoft. The Centriq 2400 chip isn't available commercially but is still in testing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Avaya to Sell Its Networking Business to Extreme Networks for $100M

Extreme believes the deal will generate a minimum of $200M in revenue for fiscal 2018.

Fears of election hacking spread in Europe

France has followed the Netherlands in placing its faith in paper-based voting systems ahead of key elections later this year, following allegations that Russian hackers influenced last year's U.S. presidential election. The French government will not allow internet voting in legislative elections to be held in June because of the "extremely elevated threat of cyberattacks." The move follows a recommendation from the French Network and Information Security Agency (ANSSI), it said Monday. The move will only affect 11 of the 577 electoral districts voting, those representing French citizens living outside their home country. These expatriates had previously been allowed to vote over the internet in some elections because the alternative was to require some of them to travel vast distances to the nearest embassy or consulate with a ballot box.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Fears of election hacking spread in Europe

France has followed the Netherlands in placing its faith in paper-based voting systems ahead of key elections later this year, following allegations that Russian hackers influenced last year's U.S. presidential election. The French government will not allow internet voting in legislative elections to be held in June because of the "extremely elevated threat of cyberattacks." The move follows a recommendation from the French Network and Information Security Agency (ANSSI), it said Monday. The move will only affect 11 of the 577 electoral districts voting, those representing French citizens living outside their home country. These expatriates had previously been allowed to vote over the internet in some elections because the alternative was to require some of them to travel vast distances to the nearest embassy or consulate with a ballot box.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco Talos warns of new Cryptolocker ransomware campaigns

A number of reports are warning businesses and consumers alike that a new round of ransomware based on the infamous Cryptolocker (aka TorrentLocker or Teerac) code is making the rounds.Today Cisco Talos wrote: “Crypt0l0cker has gone through a long evolution, the adversaries are updating and improving the malware on a regular basis. Several indicators inside the samples we have analyzed point to a new major version of the malware. We have already seen large campaigns targeting Europe and other parts of the world in 2014 and 2015. It seems to be that the actors behind these campaigns are back now and launching again massive spam attacks.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco Talos warns of new Cryptolocker ransomware campaigns

A number of reports are warning businesses and consumers alike that a new round of ransomware based on the infamous Cryptolocker (aka TorrentLocker or Teerac) code is making the rounds.Today Cisco Talos wrote: “Crypt0l0cker has gone through a long evolution, the adversaries are updating and improving the malware on a regular basis. Several indicators inside the samples we have analyzed point to a new major version of the malware. We have already seen large campaigns targeting Europe and other parts of the world in 2014 and 2015. It seems to be that the actors behind these campaigns are back now and launching again massive spam attacks.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco equipment Comprehsively Pwned by US Government

Tough day for Cisco. A large number of Cisco software releases and devices were comprehensively pwned by US Gov spy agencies. This isn’t surprising, thats what they are supposed to do but now the details have been published on WikiLeaks.

This LinkedIn blog post outlines some of what has been found.

When I took a quick look at Wikileaks data, the range of possibilities is substantial but require access to the device itself. The Cisco post has details on the range of exploits in their response published today: http://blogs.cisco.com/security/the-wikileaks-vault-7-leak-what-we-know-so-far which says its too early to frame a response. I agree.

Some thoughts:

1. Waiting to hear if other vendors are impacted, not known at this time but it seems likely.
2. Now that these vulnerabilities have been published, your networks are at risk.
3. There isn’t much that Cisco can do yet.
4. Cisco as a dominant vendor is a target because one exploit can be widely applied to more targets and because targets are likely to have Cisco assets.
5. The published vulnerabilities are for older equipment but more recent documentation will be released in the next few weeks. It could get worse if newer equipment is also vulnerable.
6. While it seems Continue reading